Transcendent
by Lachesis Fatali
Summary: Some things in life transcend life and death... Cloud/Aeris; Cloud's POV.


"Transcendent"  
by Lachesis Fatali  
  
This is what happens when you're forced to study the Transcendentalist writers for more than a month at a time. Little, nearly incomprehensible thoughts start to surface in your mind and you have to write them down, with Emerson and Longfellow sitting on the sidelines drinking tea... they're bloody annoying critics too. Enjoy their handiwork.   
  
************  
"Tell me not, in mournful numbers,  
Life is but an empty dream!  
For the soul is dead that slumbers,  
And things are not what they seem.  
  
Life is real! Life is earnest!  
And the grave is not the goal;  
Dust thou art, to dust returnest,  
Was not spoken of the soul."  
-Henry Wadsworth Longfellow  
************  
  
The house was empty. He looked at it with a pang of sorrow, it's forlorn and quiet halls aching to be filled with human comfort, human presence. Without another glance, he passed by its forsaken shelter, walking slowly up the winding path to her garden. He had no comfort to offer it in its solitude; and she was gone forever from the world as most knew it. But that didn't mean he did not understood it's pain. He too had mourned her, consumed by the need, the desire to have him back with her again, to feel her presence by him. To have her laugh with him, to strengthen him when he was alone, and plagued by doubt. But she left him far too soon, and took with her all of the other gifts she had given him.  
  
Or so he thought.  
  
Her memory was a sensation, an idea, in his uncertain past and even more uncertain present. It was the passing brush of spring air, like gentle laughter. The luminous, golden shaft of sunlight in the slums of Midgard. The faint scent of flowers, and the fields of pastel petals that grew freely outside the city. That was what he remembered of her. Her brilliant green eyes, flowing hair, her softly curved smile; he remembered them also, but not with the same fondness, the same intensity as the other ideas. It was as if that physical part of her, though real and tangible, was not all she truly was. While it captured some of her within the frail, and betraying human body, it did not capture all of her, her spirit and her beauty. That was left to freely roam what remained of nature, finding its place in all that sought to simply grow and live.  
  
He wondered idly when he, someone hardly human, had gained the ability to think such philosophical thoughts. When did he become capable of pondering of death without thinking of ending? Or life, without reminding himself of her, without mourning his loss. He smiled softly to himself as he gently stroked the soft petals of her flowers under his fingertips, amazed that they lived without care and attention for all this time. Amazed, that they had lived without her presence with them, to nurture them and give them strength in this dark and unnatural place.   
  
But her presence was here. He was not figurative by nature, but he *felt* her in the surroundings, in each step that he took on the cool and cultured earth beneath his feet. He knelt down upon the earth, removing the hard package from beneath his arms. Inside, a metal shovel, a pair of metal clippers, a pair of metal picks. He looked at them for a few moments, then shook his head and returned the tools to their confinement, instead pressing his hands against the rich earth, feeling the life and strength that her garden still held. His tools, artificial and unreal, had no place here. Here, everything was natural and right, the way the planet should have stayed. A feeling of harmony and peace permeated the garden, as if untouched by the rest of the world.   
  
There was such joy here too. He was unfamiliar with it, the bubbling touch of good will and laughter that echoed from the ground. It filled things, that joy. Nothing here was empty; it had a place, a purpose, a meaning. A wild, natural joy, now that the garden had been left to it's own designs. All of the careful time and cultivation of human hands had become of jungle of scent and sight. He had returned here many times before, with the intention of trimming back the wayward shoots, restoring the garden to its former state. But he stopped each time, lost in the untamed beauty of the scene. She would have loved it, had she been here now. It was free. And so was she.  
  
The breeze echoed around him again, carrying her laughter, her loving, giving smile. He felt its touch against his face, gently tousling his unruly golden hair with a gentle affection. He grinned in return, breathing deeply the delicate, vibrant scents of her flowers, wishing he could keep the feelings, the sensations of her with him forever; a rare comfort in the world.   
  
It was a selfish wish, he knew. She had no place within the twisted, poisoned metal of the city, and he would not take her with him there, imprison her memory in the cold and artificial world that he had become accustomed to. She would forever stay here, within her wild garden, within the veins of the living, breath Planet beneath his feet. And someday, he would find her again, when he too returned to the dust from which he was created, the Planet's Lifestream, and they would be together.  
  
Until then, he was content to merely live.  
  
************  
  



End file.
